


Tuyo

by KilltheRhythm



Category: Football RPF
Genre: M/M, Title comes from Tuyo by Rodrigo Amarante, mostly Toni is the angsty one, no wives or GFs au, not all angst there's comedy too I swear, slight angst, that one trope of I wake up in an alternate universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-15
Updated: 2017-04-15
Packaged: 2018-10-19 02:45:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10630530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KilltheRhythm/pseuds/KilltheRhythm
Summary: Toni doesn't make it a habit of waking up in other people's beds, but yet it seems to happen.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I highkey got inspired by this one Exo fanfic written about twenty thousand years ago. The setting was the whole life swap into a parallel universe. The credit for that idea goes to that author, who'd name for the life of me I cannot remember. This whole thing was written by me though.

Toni runs a hand through his hair absentmindedly, a habit that his teammates seemed to enjoy constantly giving him shit for. He readjusts how his back fits against the wall, feeling the concrete against his spine through his t shirt. For a second he feels like an awkward teenager again, trying a little too hard to look cool. It all melts away in the hazy tiredness of post training though, his muscles heavy and the world a little dreamy.

Sergio walks past him, raises an eyebrow. He asks Toni if he needs a ride, and the blond shakes his head. Sergio nods, ever cheerful, and walks off to his car. Toni can feel a small amount of pride well in his chest for how easily he handled the conversation. He didn't have to translate anything in his head, just thought and responded in Spanish.

He's snapped out of his thoughts by a slam of hands on the side of his shoulder. He jumps up and whips around in the air with a yelp more feminine than he'd like to admit. It's no surprise to see Isco beaming up at him, teeth glimmering and eyes bright.

The spaniard flicks his car keys up into the air and catching them. "I scare you?" He chuckles, already moving towards his car. It's not a hard one to spot, on account that Isco had never bothered to get a nice one like his teammates.

Toni hops into the old, beaten up thing. It's seats, despite being more than a little torn up by Isco's dog, are soft and comfortable. He watches as Isco checks to make sure his bag is actually with him (how many times had he forgotten it this month alone?) and then in the mirror to make sure his hair still looks good. It's stupid, when his hair had gotten to the level of hipster-dom it had, but endearing, Toni decides, as it never really bothers him.

Isco stops being endearing when he actually puts the car into motion. "Actually, you _are_ scaring me." Toni quips as Isco hits the gas right after a red. They're pushed far back into their seats as they near instantly go from being still to being at the speed limit. He manages to forget how poor of a driver his teammate was every time.

"Good luck finding someone who lives this close to give you rides." the shorter man scoffs, not slowing down at all to whip around a corner at a breakneck pace.

"You're an asshole." Toni grumbles over the music Isco has blaring through his half-blown out speakers. It was almost as if instead of being a professional athlete, Isco was still a high school boy.

"An asshole that lives two minutes away from you." Isco cackles, breaking suddenly for the stop sign. "Would you like for me to stop giving you rides while your car is getting fixed? You wanna walk home?"

Toni rolls his eyes, even though Isco isn't directly looking at him. He decides to change the subject, spotting a familiar shopping plaza in the distance. "You been to that new Vietnamese place? I really've been meaning to go...."

Isco turns to glare at him. "You're a fuckhead, Kroos." He still turns into the parking lot there, grumbling the entire time. Toni chuckles to himself as he parks. Training in the late evening made both of them tired and hungry, and if there was one thing he could do, it was guilt trip like a pro.

The vietnamese restaurant really is good, albeit a little too spicy for Toni. As he downs a whole glass of water, Isco nearly falls out of his chair laughing. The owner, an elderly Vietnamese man, looks at the two confusedly, but they ignore it. Toni reflects on the shared dinner when he gets home, and thinks that perhaps that interactions like that are the reason why he's gotten far better at Spanish.

There's a mighty breeze outside, but he opens up the windows in his house anyways, trusts the screen to keep bugs and other bad things out of his place. The night air is mostly warm and comforting, smelling like herbs and spices and all the things he's come to love about this new country. His neighbors are barbecuing, or trying to barbecue, and someone only a few houses away is playing the guitar and singing. As he peers out of his bathroom window he can see the wondrous microcosm of his neighborhood, and he feels something tug at his heart. He was truly happy here.

He goes to bed that night with the same feeling in his chest while the winds of the purple night ripple his sheets as they would the sea.

•

Toni awakes with a crick in his neck and goosebumps popping up on his arms. He asks himself if he had to keep the windows open, then pushes himself up onto his forearms, surveying his surroundings. The room he's in is most definitely not that of his house in Madrid, and it's not anywhere he's stayed in Germany. He tries to think if he'd drank anything, or done something that'd lead him to end up in someone else's house. Nothing comes to mind. And then he turns in the bed.

His heart drops straight through his fucking stomach, which was already making an escape attempt of its own. He wonders if this is some kind of prank, but then looks at Isco, peacefully still asleep on his half of the bed, and gets the feeling it's not.

Isco opens an eye, and then the other, and then instantly both are trained on Toni. His mouth morphs into a tiny smile, illustrated by the curving scruff scattered across the lower half of his face. "Good morning." His voice is pleasant, or would be if Toni were not panicking.

Toni wonders if Isco knows this is all a prank, but gauging by the shorter man's behavior, he either is completely out of the loop, or a fantastic actor. Isco does seem to be concerned though, sliding closer to Toni, and his facial expressions are so convincing that Toni cannot even guess at what's going on in his head.

"You okay?" Isco says, and he's all too close for Toni's liking. He's practically--no, he is on top of Toni, peering down at him with a certain mixture of concern and something else that Toni can't put his finger on.

Maybe it's now that Toni realizes Isco is not even joking, is actually concerned. Then he remembers that the smaller man is fucking straddling him, and that they're in a bed together and shirtless and this is like so many different kinds of wrong that it makes his head spin. For a split second he groans, actually thinks he that he likes this, until he thinks a little more and realizes that getting a hard on for a teammate probably isn't the best course of action.

"Isco?" He asks, trying to make his heartbeat return to a normal pace, and then attempting to slide the smaller man off of him. Isco does with little emotion, eyeing Toni cagily. "What's going on?"

Isco cocks his head to the side like Toni was speaking German to him or something, which makes Toni more than a little worried. "What do you mean?"

Toni pushes himself up to be in a more upright position. Isco, sat at the edge of the bed, looks painfully confused. "Why are we in a bed together? Who's house are we at?"

Isco narrows his eyes and scoffs. "Ha ha. Very funny Toni." He slips away from the bed and turns to leave the room. "I'm gonna make breakfast."

Toni falls back into bed with a thump, and squeezes his eyes closed tight. Panic starts to well in his chest, but he tries to beat it down. Freaking out won't help this. He tries his best to logic it out, break down into pieces that he could analyze and make sense of.

He can hear Isco hum along to a song on the radio and the sounds of something sizzling on a pan. Toni's stomach rumbles involuntarily, and he sighs, getting out of bed. He slowly pads through the carpeted bedroom floor, and then can hear the soft 'plop' of his feet as he walks along tile. The house has quite a few photos up, many hung haphazardly, something he knows Isco does without too much thought.

The first one is of Isco's dog, and then the second a group photo; Isco, Toni, James, Sergio, and the third photo is just Isco and Toni, smiling happily together by the Eiffel Tower. As his gaze slowly reaches other photos, the sense of panic comes back with a vengeance. Each one is more worse than the next, until he can't bare to look at the rest. This prank is either insanely well thought out or not a prank at all.

"Pancakes are ready!" Isco calls out from the kitchen. Toni slowly enters the room, staring blankly at Isco. Indeed a steaming pile of pancakes were in his hands, but then Toni saw that his arms lacked the tattoos that were so identifiably his, and Isco's hair is just the slightest bit shaggier on top. _Fuck_.

Toni sits down at the table in the kitchen blankly as Isco sets down the plates, offered him orange juice, and flicked off the radio. When the shorter man finally took his own seat, he looked at Toni with a healthy amount of concern.

"Toni? Are you okay? You're looking a little pale." Isco's hand reaches out to touch Toni's forehead: there's no fever to be found.

He doesn't exactly know what to say, mouth suddenly dry and esophagus in knots. There are photos of them together here, there's a little calendar of the week on the fridge that has work schedules on it (undoubtably in his own handwriting too), and they share a bed. Toni's not dense, he knows that these signs all clue up to one thing, but he doesn't want to admit it. His hands are clammy.

"Are we dating?"

Isco instantly scoffs at this, brow furrowed and mouth open. He looks equal parts shocked and angry. "What is up with you today?"

Toni's at a loss for words again, but knows that he's got to explain himself, that it's all got to come out sooner or later. There's no denying what has happened now. Isco's features have turned more melancholy now, large eyes pointed at the German. "So," he starts. Isco nods, telling him to continue without words. "so, I went to bed in my own house last night, and I woke up here. I don't remember any of this, like I was just living my life and then I ended up here."

Isco's facial expression is incredulous. "Are you fucking kidding me?"

Toni quickly shakes his head, then wonders if he can prove any of this. Isco still looks horrified, so he tries to continue. "Really. It's like I was in another world or something, I dunno. Like there, I have--"

"Okay! Okay, Toni." Isco sighs, looking resignedly at his pancakes.

Toni frowns, cocking his head a little. "Do you believe me?"

Isco pauses, and lord the silence is heavy, crushing and if you could drown in quiet then Toni certainly was. The bearded man seemed to be looking anywhere but at the German in front of him. The pause continues, stretches out indefinitely, like Isco mulling everything over was some punishment for a crime Toni had committed but could not remember.

Finally. "Yeah. You can't lie for shit."

Toni breaths a sigh of relief, then takes a bite of his food. It's really good, better than he or Isco could ever have cooked in his own memory. "This is, uh, really good." It's the worst way to break the silence, and it awkward and wrong but Toni was already a square peg somehow slammed through a round hole.

Isco chuckles, smiling a tiny smile that suddenly seems so endearing. "It's just pancakes." This subject seems a little better, like they can sidestep this entire sense of wrongness with small talk about breakfast, but then his face falls again. He looks back at Toni, expression once again mournful. "I own a cafe."

The blond's eyes widen a little bit. Of course they weren't professional footballers here, this was completely different. "So we're..?"

Isco absentmindedly pokes a pool of maple syrup with his fork. "We've been dating for three years," His eyes meet blue ones again, and he sighs. "Like I said, I own a cafe."

"And I?"

Isco smiles a tiny, near emotionless smile again. "You have an office job. Which you're supposed to be going into today." He pauses. "Should probably call in sick though, huh?"

Toni nods dumbly. Isco gets up with a heavy sigh, patting the back of the blond's chair as he passes him. "I'll call them. You finish breakfast, yeah?"

He nods and complies, chewing as he listens to Isco ring up his boss, tell him that "unfortunately he has the flu, should be out for a few days, oh thanks I'll tell him that you said to get well soon." He looks at Toni with this dejected expression on his face when it's over, like someone just told him that his dog died. He wants to give Isco an empathetic look back, but it's hard to do when your mouth is full of pancake.

"I've gotta open up the shop," Isco says after a long moment of silence, already padding back to the bedroom. "All our shit is in here, maybe it'll get your memory back."

Toni puts himself to good use while Isco gets ready for work. He cleans off their dishes and puts everything in the dishwasher. Isco goes from the bedroom to the living room, slipping on his shoes and then turning back to the other man in the house. Isco's dress sense isn't much different, but how he instantly moves close into Toni is jarring. Before he can remember that this isn't the right person he's kissed him on the cheek, then pulls away.

"Fuck." Isco says. "Shit. I'm sorry. Force of habit." Quickly he's at the door. "If you need me, I'm downstairs. Make yourself at home."

He leaves swiftly and rushes down the steps, door closed behind him. The cafe doesn't have to open for another hour and a half, but he has no intention of staying at home for now. He doesn't bother turning on the lights either, just walks through the dining room and back room so he can get to the kitchen, sets his things down and sighs.

He can feel tears welling up in his eyes, and tries to banish them because he's not exactly sure what part of this whole thing hurts him the most. He wonders if he'd done something bad, bad enough to be punished with this, or if this was the universe pulling some horrid cosmic prank on him. It doesn't matter though, he's already crying in the middle of a kitchen of an unlit cafe.

Meanwhile, after Isco leaves, the German looks around the apartment. It's a little messy, but homely, with enough photos and memorabilia to be unmistakably theirs. He feels like an intruder here, even though it's pieces of him scattered around the house too.

He decides to try and do something positive and clean up the place. He manages to get both the kitchen and living room near spotless before he moves on over to the bed room. He feels even more like an imposter here, where it's so clearly someone else's. Still, the feeling of owing it to Isco to tidy things up won't dissipate, so he starts picking up clothes and putting them in the hamper.

He catches himself in the mirror and is a little more than surprised. It's still clearly himself he's looking at, but he doesn't look like how he did just yesterday. Sure, the eye bags and his height and everything else is the same, but his hair is a little longer, just enough to notice. The tattoos he once had are gone too, and his face seems just a little rounder, especially around his jaw. He looks at himself some more, and he really doesn't look much like a professional footballer at all. He pulls up his shirt and winces at how much heavier he looks, his stomach a good bit softer for sure. He doesn't like this at all.

Looking at himself in the mirror upsets him more than a little, so he looks out the window instead. They're on the second story, and below he can see a patio and a small backyard. He guesses that the cafe is downstairs, as if he trains his ears he can hear the quiet ding of a bell as a door opens.

He decides that the bedroom is clean enough, and quickly leaves.

\----

Isco walks up the steps at around six to see Toni frantically stirring at something over the stovetop. For a second he can feel his chest warm, but the feeling subsides swiftly when he remembers that this isn't the right person. Another reminder of this was that there was that whatever he was cooking, he was horribly burning it.

"I, uh," Toni smiles awkwardly at Isco, gesturing toward the pot that had charred pasta stuck to it. "I tried to follow this recipe and I fucked up."

Isco is swarmed with the want to coddle him, but remembers that this isn't his boyfriend, it's someone masquerading in the same body. He pats Toni on the shoulder and takes the pot from him, filling it with water and putting it in the sink. "I'll order us some take out, alright? Korean sound good?" He almost winces at how brusque he sounds, but he's trying his hardest not to care.

Over Korean food a little too greasy to ever have been allowed at Real Madrid, they finally talk. Toni tries his best to explain his life before this switcharoo, and Isco fills him in (admittedly curtly) on their shared existence. They'd been dating for three years and a quarter, and been living together for the past year, and had visited both sets of parents extensively. Isco'd co owned the cafe with Sergio since they'd graduated from college, and Toni had an office job as the tech guy for a magazine. With some thought, Toni thinks to himself that this life apart from football, with Isco, wasn't that bad.

They end up watching a movie together that night, which is more awkward than not considering the fact that he'd barged in on some unknown routine and disrupted the flow of pretty much everything. Isco repeatedly puts his head on his shoulder, then jolts away, only to do it again twenty minutes later. As the credits roll they look back at each other.

"I can sleep on the couch." Isco offers. This is the kindest his voice has sounded the entire day.

Toni shakes his head. "We're in your house. I'll take the couch."

Isco pushes him off of the couch. The curtness is back in his voice. "Go, seriously. My place, my rules. You're sleeping on the bed." He complies, but lays awake on the bed for a long time, feeling generally miserable.

The next morning is more awkward than any walk of shame Toni has done in his existence as an adult. Isco is near silent during breakfast, and leaves Toni to a house that is already clean and with next to nothing for him to do. Toni flicks through a phone that apparently he owns, reading the texts. This seems to provide s little more information on his life, even though most of them are Isco reminding him what he needs to pick up from the store with little heart emojis. For example, the workplace groupchat gives him a window into the dynamics of his office (which albeit were generally based around treating their boss, Cristiano Ronaldo, like Jesus reincarnate). Finding things like that he was great friends with James help him get an idea of who he was supposed to be, or was at one time.

The next text is from his mom, who types exactly as he remembers she does. What she is saying is more alarming than not though, as she's reminding him that she's coming over for dinner some Thursday night. Toni's phone cheerfully tells him that that is two and a half weeks away.

When Isco comes home that night, Toni mentions it to him. Isco's eyes widen to tremendous proportions, and he mumbles a few choice curse words under his breath. Only because he already knows what Isco is like, the hopping out of his seat to pace through the apartment doesn't surprise him. His brain still moves a mile a minute.

Isco jolts back over to him, slamming hands down on the table. "We can't get out of this! You'll have to just act like you know what you're doing."

"Do you really think that that's gonna slide?" Toni asks him incredulously.

Isco's hands are up in the air, flamboyantly reacting like how he always has. "Do you have a better idea?"

There's a pause, Isco's eyes hot on him. Could he come up with something to get them out of this? It was times like this that he cursed his lack of creativity. "Yeah, I don't."

Instead of watching a movie that night, they spend what seems like endless hours trying to get him to absorb every piece of information needed to succeed in this dinner. They'd be eating with Toni's mom. It was like studying for the most personal final exam ever, one that seemed impossible to pass.

Isco leaves the table as Toni pours over a booklet of photos. Some are them and their friends, a few of them in high school, some in college, and quite a few of them traveling. The shorter man comes back with some wine, pouring it into two glasses.

"This is fucking bullshit," Isco sighs, and in all of the years that Toni has known him, this is by far the most depressed he's heard him. Quietly, mostly under his breath, he can hear him murmur "what did I do for this to happen to me?"

Hours, more than a few photo books and one bottle of wine later, some confidence is instilled in the two of them. Toni knows everything that there ever was to do with Isco's cafe, is up to date with all of his office's gossip and knows pretty much everything that has happened to their circle of friends in the past three years.

This new confidence doesn't help him too much the next morning, where he sits in the house alone as Isco goes off to work yet again. With nothing better to do and an increased restlessness settling under his bones, he sets to alphabetizing every single DVD and VCR in the house. Between tapes of Star Trek and some Bollywood film who's name he couldn't even dream of pronouncing, he finds a relatively unmarked VCR. There are a few things scribbled on it, some of them being hearts and the other being the word "Paris".

He pops the tape into its slot, surprised that in 2017 he and Isco still possessed not only tapes but outdated VCR technology. The footage on it has that special homemade kind of feel, and it starts in hotel room that is more bright, linen and white than not. The camera pans about, past a bed and dresser drawers, settling on a balcony. It pushes past the thin curtains, and then pans again. Trees are visible first, then the Paris skyline, and finally, Toni. He looks younger, a little thinner and well rested, smiling into the camera with his mug of early morning coffee.

"Ah, Paris," the camera operator says in a familiar voice. It's Isco, through and through. "What do you think?"

The onscreen version of himself chuckles, so clearly amused by the man behind the camera. "Fantastic!" He pauses, playful look on his face. "Even better with you, though."

Again, Isco talks while recording. "Such a sap! Alright then, mr Romantic, which is prettier, this city or me?"

His joke of a question is met with laughter, and the footage cuts to a park. He, or the onscreen version of himself, is trying to get a blanket to lie down wrinkleless in the grass, and once again, Isco is laughing his ass off offscreen.

"Here we have a wild Kroos in its natural habitat, making its nest... They say that getting the blanket just so is how the male Kroos initiate their search for a mate." Isco narrates in his best David Attenborough impression.

Onscreen Toni looks up and past the camera, to Isco, one could assume, and sighs, shaking his head. "I swear, I'm going to break up with you."

A mock gasp. "This is the city of love! How could you?"

The filmed version of himself fires back a joke while getting food out of a basket. It looks good, all breads and cheeses and things that surely the nutritionists at Real Madrid would have an aneurism over.

Once the food is all out, the version of himself recorded looks at it all proudly. Isco shuffles back with the camera and now the Eiffel Tower is in the background too. It's as stereotypical as it gets, but the image warms his chest a little.

The camera shakes, and with a quick flip it turns to Isco, like a rudimentary attempt at a selfie. Isco's clean shaven, which is quite possibly more surprising than anything else Toni had experienced in the past few days. "Look at all of that! Real French bread!"

The no longer onscreen version of himself is quick to respond. "No shit Sherlock, we're in Paris."

Offscreen, Isco retorts lamely and they both break into laughter. The rest of the tape is like that, warm and happy and something that seemed so attainable. The recorded version of himself, him in this world, wasn't really any different from him here, and perhaps, Toni thinks, that is what makes this so jarring.

It gives him an idea of what he's supposed to be like with Isco though, how they would have navigated space and interacted around others if things were as they should be. Once he finishes watching the recording, he puts it back and then goes to to the bookshelf, once again organizing and alphabetizing.

He's finished putting away the last of the cookbooks when he comes across a few hand bound journals. They're travel logs, and he spends the next few hours pouring over them. They have little doodles of Isco's, and Toni's chicken scratch drawings occasionally on them, but mostly it belongs to the spaniard. Details of their travels are interspersed with cut outs of maps and magazines and small photos.

The start of the Paris entry is right next to the end of their visit to Isco's parents in Malaga. There's a quickly written segment at the bottom of that page:

Find out what song this is:  
_"Soy el fuego que arde tu piel_  
Soy el agua que mata tu sed  
El castillo, la torre yo soy  
La espada que guarda el caudal"

Toni smiles at this; Isco had liked that song for a long time. Apparently he liked it in this world too, or enough to scrawl the first verse into a travel log. Maybe he'd first heard it in Malaga, and had to write it down to remember.

He ends up playing it as he finishes reorganizing the rest of the bookshelf, a task he'd stopped halfway through to read. He's humming along to the song, although he knows he's pretty much completely off key when he hears the door click open. As soon as Isco hears the song he's joined in on the singing, beaming as he walks through the living room to look at Toni.

"Well," he whistles, looking around the house with wide eyes. "I think this is the nicest I've ever seen this place. Ever."

He can feel a small amount of heat rising in his cheeks at the compliment, and Isco plops down next to him on the floor in front of the bookshelf. The spaniard seems to be in shock that Toni arranged all of the books by genre. "Holy shit, man. Even the books?"

They turn to face each other, and if maybe he was the right person or the right version of himself they'd kiss or actually do something that a couple would; they were supposed to be a couple after all, weren't they? Instead they just stay there sat on the floor, closer than Toni would usually have ever sat with a man.

"I wanna go to work with you tomorrow." He blurts out before he can stop himself. "I think I'll die if I stay cooped up in here any longer."

Isco looks at him, straight in the eyes, and then seems to be looking at the rest of his face. "Yeah, you can do that."

Toni smiles, and wonders if this was his life if he'd never gotten good at football. The floor is cool underneath him, and he can hear the wind rustling outside the house. He doesn't know what to say anymore, but Isco looks sad. He hugs the smaller man and hopes that maybe he can help.

Isco breaths, face mushed into Toni's shoulder and chest, deep and heavy, maybe a little shakey. Toni offers to sleep on the couch that night.

\----

He wakes up to morning radio and the sound of cooking. Toni clambers up off of the couch and pads into the kitchen. Isco turns, spatula in hand and body still facing the stovetop, to smile at him. There's something nice in it all, something Toni misses from his own life. Maybe he'd been single for too long.

Breakfast somehow seems more exciting, maybe because there's something to look forward to. Isco briefs him on everything he needs to know, something that seems to happen more often than not, and then he's set to man the cash register.

It's an instant throwback to the odd jobs he'd work in the summer in Germany sometimes in his teen years, except it's not the early two thousands anymore. Still, he hums along to the cafe radio and types in customers' orders. He's a little surprised by how full the place was, but it's a welcome distraction.

He gets the most horrible moment of deja vu when he sees one of his neighbors, or at least someone who was one of his neighbors. She's not his neighbor here, of course, but it's still strange to see middle aged María, someone who introduced him to tortillas when he first moved to Madrid, asking him if she could get one of the soups.

"How's cashier going?" Isco asks him in the backroom during their lunch break. Toni beams at him.

"It's great."

Isco chuckles. "I've never seen someone so excited about being cashier before."

That doesn't seem to stop Toni's newfound sense of enthusiasm. "You would be if you were put under house arrest for days too."

There's a pause, one where Isco blankly looks down at the table they're sat at. Maybe he's just sad. Maybe he feels guilt. He looks back up at Toni. "How about I take us out for dinner tonight?"

Toni nods yes instantly, not just because he wants to be out of the house, but also because he's enjoying spending time with Isco.

They end up settling on some Chinese place that Toni is pretty sure that doesn't exist in his own timeline-- timeline, that what he's taken to calling it, because giving it a word made it less scary. Isco agrees, and they walk there after work. There's an amicableness between them again, Isco warm and friendly once again.

It's lovely, being out and about in town without anyone recognizing you. Maybe it's something Toni's forgotten about, professional debut being so long ago. No one stared at him, or stared at Isco, or seemed to even care about them, even when Isco took hold of his hand as they made their way through the crosswalk.

It's not fully a conscious effort, but Toni doesn't let go of his hand when they make it to the other side of the street. He looks at Isco, expects a reaction, but nothing happens. They're just walking and holding hands. In the middle of Madrid. And no one seems to care.

It's even better when they get to the restaurant. He can order anything he wants, and this is possibly the most exciting revelation he's had since he's gotten here. He's not a professional athlete with professional dietitians and professional nutritionists with professional standards about exactly what and how much he can have. He orders lo mein.

Isco laughs at how he's beaming the entire time. "Have you ever even had Chinese food before?" he jokes, and Toni tells him to shut up because he doesn't know what freedom is.

The waitress doesn't like them, and that's immediately obvious. She's curt and unpleasant and sits them next to the family gathering of twelve, complete with three crying children. She glares at them when Toni's thumb brushes over Isco's hand as they read the menus.

This is something new too. He's never had to deal with homophobia before, and even though he's not gay, he suddenly feels a need to make sure she knows he has a boyfriend. He grips Isco's hand tightly whenever he knows she's nearby.

Isco chuckles again. "Calm down, I'll just give her a bad Yelp review."

It's the best night he's had in a while. They walk home, more than a little buzzed off of sake and with fortune cookies in their pockets. Toni holds Isco's hand again, though he isn't sure exactly why. He tells himself it's to keep up appearances, but Isco doesn't seem to mind.

Isco's just taking it all in stride at this point. If he isn't paying close attention it's like nothing's changed. If any of his friends were to see him on the street they wouldn't expect a thing. If only... Isco decides he's not going to let his mind wander. His boyfriend's having a great time, so he tries to feel the same.

Of course it's hard to shake all of the pervasive melancholy that's infiltrated his life over the past week. He still feels like a cosmic joke, because who the hell has their significant other switched out with another version of themselves from a parallel universe? For a little while though, it all feels right again.

He fidgets with the keys to his apartment. Toni suggests they watch a movie. Alright, he'll say back. They decide to watch Princess's Bride, which is more enjoyable than expected, considering the usual quality of dubs.

Somehow, though, they end up both going to the bedroom together. If he tries hard enough, nothing had ever happened and he's just going to sleep tonight with his boyfriend and all is well. They change into pajamas and collapse into bed.

Toni wakes up with an arm on his chest and hair tickling his neck. He jolts up, stares at the person beside him in bed. It's still Isco. It's Isco. He panics, then looks at them two. They're both in pajamas, and Isco has his retainer in, still sleeping softly. There's enough serenity in this scene to tell him that nothing bad happened.

He tries to go back to sleep. Isco's, no, their bed was comfier than his own, but it doesn't feel like home. He's wide awake despite it being 7:36 AM on a Saturday morning. He tries to synchronize his breaths with Isco's out of boredom, and then finally decides to get out of bed.

He's familiar with their apartment now, familiar enough to know what section of the freezer the eggo pancakes are without looking and to know how to work the wonky coffee machine. He makes himself breakfast and listens to morning radio, which is mostly talk anyways.

He could live like this. Maybe that's the scary part.

Then there's a pang of homesickness. He misses playing football, he misses his friends and his house and his Madrid. He misses being himself and the tattoos that he had and his neighbors' annoying chihuahua Oswaldo. He misses having his own life and he misses everything. He's home and he's not.

Isco finds him crying in the kitchen and immediately rushes to him, murmuring support. Toni hates crying, but there's no damn way he's stopping now. Isco rubs soothing circles on his back and tells him to eat breakfast and that everything will be okay.

He can't help but continue to have his little freak out though, brain swimming with questions. He still feels panic-y, but that's not going to go away. He's a fucking imposter.

"I'm so sorry." He tells Isco, still wrapped up in the spaniard's arms. It must be the fifth time he's said that in the past hour, and the hundredth in the time he's spent here.

"Why are you-- it's okay, Toni." Isco gives up trying to figure out why the taller man is panicking.

Toni looks away, at anything that isn't Isco. There's a pervasive sense of guilt that's slipped into everything around him. "It's just, I- I fucked everything up, right? You don't deserve this, I'm not supposed to be here, and now I'm sleeping in your bed and replaced your boyfriend and I've ruined everything."

The shorter man sets himself on the chair next to Toni, separate but close. Neither of them look at each other. "It's okay Toni."

"It's not. Don't act like it is." His voice is a little forceful.

Isco frowns at him. Toni wants to add more, to tell him that he's a thief, that he's taken everything and wasted his time and unnecessarily stressed him out. He could tell him that he actually likes being around him too, but he knows there are limits.

Then Isco looks proper mad. His eyebrows furrow. "Don't tell me how to feel."

"I-"

"I get that you feel bad, and that I feel bad too, but don't tell me how to feel. I'm not acting, I'm just trying to be fucking nice to you, and you have to go and tell me that I'm lying to your face," Isco's voice gets louder with every word and then he gets up, still in a t-shirt and athletic shorts, and paces away from the table. There's venom in his words. "I'm going for a walk."

He slams the door, and then rushes down the steps. The blonde sits at the table by the kitchen. He's torn between anger and self-pity. If he were home, back in his own house in his own life, he'd call Thomas.

He checks his phone. Thomas's number isn't in his contacts, but his email is. He won't. He's about to put the phone away, but it starts to vibrate. James is calling him. Toni pauses for a second, wonders if he should pick it up.

"Hey," James says. Toni regrets picking up instantly. "I know that you're sick, but can we talk?"

He's forgotten that that was his excuse. He pauses, tries to summon his most hoarse voice. "Uh, yeah. I'm feeling better."

"Oh thank god, Toni. We were getting worried," James says, and the smile is audible in his words. "I need advice though."

"Um."

"I- I wanna ask the boss for a raise."

Toni moves over to the couch to stretch out his legs. He also curses to all of the deities that he knows. Then he remembers failing his theater class in high school, and swears at his theater teacher too. "Well, do you think Cristiano would say yes?"

James gives him a loud hmpf. "I don't know, that's why I asked you! I mean, I've been writing here for five years, and when was the last time I got a raise?"

"Ages ago."

"Exactly! I just don't know when to though, I don't wanna get Ronaldo mad... didn't you say he went through a messy break up not too long ago?"

Toni pauses. His bluff has gone as far as his (limited) lying capabilities can take him. What was he going to say though; oops, sorry I fell through some rift in the space time continuum and I'm actually someone else? "Yeah, I think so," pause "sorry James, but I've gotta go. Talk to you at work?"

James sends him his goodbyes, tells him he's glad that he's feeling better. He sets the phone down with a sigh on the arm of the couch, and wonders what is next. Isco's away, and there's nothing to do. He decides he'll turn on the tv.

He channel surfs for a while, until he finds a channel that's playing a rerun of last month's El Clasico. This is quite possibly the trippiest thing he's seen in his stay here, watching people he's never seen in his life play for his beloved Madrid. He checks the line ups; not a single player he'd ever heard of was on either roster. However, the way the commentator hyped up one of Barcelona's midfielders speaks volumes to who is this world's Messi equivalent.

The game is good, like how most clasicos are, but there's a special sense of melancholy to watching it. Toni wonders if he'll feel like this when he retires. Outside, the weather takes a turn for the worst.

Wind whistles and slaps against the windows of the apartment, and then thunder rumbles and lightning streaks the sky, and finally the rain comes down; torrents and showers of water hammering the roofs and sidewalks and trees.

Isco arrives moments after the rain, mostly dry and less pissed off. He stares at Toni cagily from the front door. The blonde tries hard to not make eye contact. The Clasico has ended now though, changed into a telanovela, and now there's no reason for him to be staring at the TV.

"I'm sorry," both of them end up saying.

\-----

They spend that Sunday at the library. It's within walking distance, and they make the trek in the small space of time where it isn't raining. There, they look for all the books on parallel universes and time travel that the library has. The lady gives them a funny look as she checks out book after book after book with titles like "the Acrobat and the Flea" or "Many worlds: Lives Beyond ours".

Back home, they begin to leaf through all of the books. Isco reads them incredibly fast, scanning for any pertinent information. Much to Toni's surprise, he has less of a hard time reading the books. He does not remember having the ability to read Spanish this well, but his brain seems to do it with a mind of its own.

A few mugs of caffeinated beverages and hours later, they stop, sprawled out on the couch. A mountain of books below them and notes scribbled on paper around them, Isco yawns, legs kicking over onto Toni's lap.

"You find anything?"

"Not really."

He stared at the blonde with huge eyes. "I thought you were the sciencey one!"

He shakes his head. "This is different. I don't know any of this, and definitely not in Spanish," he pauses to run hands through his hair. "Please tell me you saw something."

Isco grabs a book, and shifts himself upright again, now far closer to Toni on the couch. He pulls a small amount of papers from the coffee table. "Well, uh, I did find this one thing. Uh, basically, we have a bunch of timelines, and they're all right next to each other, but you can't get through," he says, papers in one hand, lined up in a neat stack, and pencil in the other. Then, with a sharp stab through the paper "unless you rip a hole through them."

"A hole?" Toni looks at him incredulously.

"Yeah, a hole. You'd need, like, a crazy amount of energy to do it."

They both are quiet for a moment, wondering what kind of thing would be powerful enough to do it. "Wait, how did it open in the first place?"

Isco shrugs. "I'm no scientist."

Toni throws his hands in the air, and gets up off the couch. He'll take a break from all of this, and prays that that'll put it all together. A nice pace through the house does absolutely nothing though, and he returns back to Isco still frazzled.

"Did Ton-- I-- you-- did we do anything that could have caused this?"

Isco looks thoughtful for a while. "I don't think so. We didn't do anything out of the ordinary. What about you?"

Now it's the German's time to think. "No. Nothing."

Isco sighs, runs hands through his hair until it stands on end. He murmurs a few choice words too, the kind that no one bothered teaching to Toni before he moved to Madrid.

He suggests to the spaniard that maybe they should take a break from all of this. They end up spending the rest of the day test cooking new recipes for the cafe, the weather being too bad to do much else.

There's a lovely serenity to baking with Isco, though he has absolutely no idea what he's doing. Isco just shows him what to do, how to mix and roll out dough and hums to the radio. Occasionally Isco will write out little notes into his baking notepad.

Toni steams vegetables for dinner and they eat them with the new recipe for ciabatta bread. As much as it pains him to admit, he enjoys the domesticity of it all, waking up and spending the day with someone. It's something he missed before in Madrid, no significant other or roommate to live with.

They watch Narcos together that night and go to bed. He could get used to this, sharing a bed with someone, but it feels wrong to. As he starts to feel his eyes getting heavy, he remembers: he's going to work tomorrow. Fuck.

So Isco, half-asleep and with a far smaller degree of panic than Toni, is forced to answer all of the German's questions. Once he's done he plummets back down into the mattress, turning on his side to go to sleep. Toni's attempts to go to bed are far less fruitful.

Isco laughs at him when he wakes up, open mouthed and cackling. He tries to tell the spaniard that stress wasn't funny, but Isco just continues to crack up.

"You look like you haven't slept since 1993," he giggles.

Toni rolls his eyes. He'll play the straight man today. "That's the look I'm going for."

The rest of his day is a little less easygoing. For one, he hasn't a clue as to where his formal office clothes are. Once he has them on its weird because he's wearing someone else's clothes. This whole thing reminds him that he hates polo shirts, but Isco tells him that this is usually what he looks like.

He feels like a fucking imposter at work. He sits down at his office space, meters away from James. Cristiano Ronaldo has his own room a little further away. He thinks he sees Luka and Gareth to his right. It's all uncanny and terrifying.

"Feeling better?" James asks, rolly-chairing over towards him.

"Yeah, a lot better."

James is a literal ray of sunshine. "That's great!" Still beaming, he slides his laptop onto Toni's desk. "I also think I might have broken it. Again."

He sighs like this is a thing he's used to, and inspects the computer. (Thankfully) He'd seen his own laptop crash plenty of times, and knows what to do. James looks amazed at what is actually logging into the systems admin account to fix one error, and then going back to James's.

"I think that does it." He says like he knows what he's doing. James calls him cyber Jesus and then backpedals to his desk.

Luka, Gareth and James all decide to eat with him at lunch. It feels nice to have friends again, but it feels wrong to not discuss things like they did at the club. Instead of talking about the next game coming up or making bets on who could try to meg Zidaine, they're all talking about what Toni missed last week at the office.

"Benzema won the office poker championship," Gareth says.

"Again," Luka adds.

"Third time in a row," James chimes in.

Suddenly there is a looming presence behind Toni and James. They can tell by the startled expression in Luka and Gareth's eyes. That was probably why neither of them had won an office poker game yet.

"Good to hear you all talking about that," Cristiano Ronaldo says, moving so all four of them could see him. Unsurprisingly, he was impeccably dressed, shoes, suit and hair all perfect. "I wanted to discuss that with you."

"Okay," the four say in unison. Cristiano flashed them a blindingly white smile.

Amazingly, he pulls up a seat next to them at the table. James looks stunned, his expression being one of those 'oh my lord he is actually socializing with us mere mortals' looks.

"Don't you think that it's a little unfair that he's won all of the poker championships since he's been hired?" Cristiano asks. His lunch is some expertly cooked, insanely healthy Japanese dish.

James seems amazed that his boss is able to eat it without dirtying his suit. Toni feels more envy than anything else, with his lunch consisting of a sandwich and an apple. Luka's lunch meanwhile consists only of a bag of sweet potato chips.

"Are we firing him?" Luka asks. Gareth slaps him.

"No, but I say that we get some revenge." Cristiano now looks like the devil himself. That was, if the devil was a ripped Portuguese man with a questionable spray tan.

Everyone (sans Gareth) nods their agreement. James suggests rigging the next office game. Luka suggests putting a whoopie cushion on his seat.

"I think vengeance is morally wrong," Gareth says. Toni is starting to believe that he is the only sane man here.

Cristiano cuts off the debate with a flourish and a flamboyant 'adieu'. Toni spends the rest of his lunch break arguing with his (newfound) friends over the merits of season three of portlandia.

He walks home to a slightly messy house, and a note from Isco telling him that "Mondays are the day my pick up team practices, see you at seven". There's another note that tells him where dinner is. Suddenly he knows how people who work nine to fives feel.

He reheats his dinner and flicks on the tv, going to Netflix, to watch portlandia. He'd go back to work tomorrow and win the argument. Another stack of the books that they checked out at the library sits on the short table by the couch. At the top is a Spanish language version of "Le Petit Prince".

He leafs through the book, vaguely amazed by the fact that for some reason, he could read Spanish near perfectly. Maybe it was because the book was written for kids. Maybe it was due to the whole universe swap. Either way, he falls asleep on the couch, copy of the book spread out on his chest, and dreams of snakes that eat elephants and little boy princes who lived on tiny planets.

He wakes up a few hours later to find that Isco sits next to him in the couch. Isco's hair is damp and he's in pajamas, and Toni finds that somehow, his head is cradled in Isco's lap. Isco hums along to the theme song of whatever tv show he's watching, and peacefully, Toni drifts back off to sleep.

\----

The week goes on, and Toni would like to say that it drags. Drags wouldn't be the truth though, because he enjoys all of this. He loves living with someone else, and he likes the unintended intimacy that they seemed to naturally drift to, and he likes his coworkers. His fellow employees at the magazine are certainly dysfunctional, like a zanier version of his teammates, but it's entertaining.

Truth be told; he wants to hate this new world he's been thrown into. It would be easier if that were the case. He'd have the motivation to find his way back home, go back to how things were supposed to be. But he liked playing childish card games with his office friends and he liked taking evening walks with Isco.

It was particularly Isco that was the problem, when he thinks about it. It wasn't right, he knew that, but he couldn't help but start to foster a little crush for the shorter man. Getting to act like a couple in public only made things worse. Isco would hold his hand, or lean into his shoulder, or just speak to him with such endearing conviction that he could feel the blood flushing in his face. Toni hated it and loved it at the same time, because his heart starts racing every damn time.

Luka asks him how things are going at home after lunch on Thursday when they're both taking out the office recycling. Toni tells him that things are perfect, he's in love, and he sells it with such conviction that he realizes it isn't a lie. He thinks about that a lot when he gets back to his office space, because oh dear lord he meant it, he wasn't just saying things to keep up appearances and he was clearly digging his own grave.

If Isco is bothered by any of his slightly increased affection it doesn't show. He's surprisingly stoic in the face of all that life throws at him. He tries not to get sad about missing his Toni, because this one was almost the same. He looked the same, told the same jokes, liked the same food, snored the same. He just wasn't. Thinking about it longer than necessary only makes his eyes sting a little bit at the corners and his throat gather up in knots. He almost felt bad for not feeling bad enough, because he should desperately miss his significant other, not barely look for him as he was doing.

Instead, he takes out any frustration at the food in his cafe. He kneads the dough out with more force, slams things around like they owe him money. Sergio raises his brows occasionally, but all the breads were still fluffy, the soups well made.

However, it gets harder and harder to dance around the subject as they get closer to Toni's mother's visiting date. Perhaps he thought that convincing his coworkers of his legitimacy would give him some confidence, but as it happens, his officemates have the collective IQ of a seven year old.

Nights go on, and some of their friends (and it feels strange to say 'their', but they were practically married and shared most everything, including friends) come over for dinner on evenings, or they go out to meet others. This is when it feels like it should get the scariest, but Isco keeps him too calm for any slip up to happen.

Except at Cristiano's birthday party they almost do slip up. Toni, despite studying the entire life he was supposed to have lived to his best ability, cannot remember everything, and inevitably messes up, to the slight horror of his coworkers. Isco covers it all up quickly with a rushed explanation, and for once they can be thankful that his office was full of particularly unobservant people.

Isco holds his hand when they get ready to sing "Happy Birthday" to Ronaldo. They had supplied the cake, and it was one they were particularly happy about buying, as it had a photocopied picture of Cristiano's face on it.

Cristiano unironically loves the cake. The party is a success. Isco talks extensively with Luka and Gareth and Marcello, the sports editor who is the only person at the office with a semblance of having it together. Apparently, he's the one who gave the grand idea of having a portrait of oneself to Cristiano. There is now a life size painting of the boss in his office space.

They all drink a little too much white wine that night, and Isco is slightly giggly as they walk home. He suggests they stop in the park by their house. Toni can't ever seem to say no to Isco, and especially not when both of them are tipsy, so he finds himself slipping in the gravel of the play place as Isco glides down a tall metal slide.

"Come up here Toni!" He yells from the top, cheery and excited.

Toni sighs, and begins the ascent up the ladder of the slide to get to Isco. It probably wouldn't be as difficult if he was completely sober, but that was nowhere near the case and the ladder seems twice as tall, with infinitely many rungs. Isco seems a million miles further away, but he must persevere.

After what seems like a decade of climbing, he clambers up to the top. The tin of the floor of the slide top is cool under his palms, and there is more space for the two of them than expected.

"Isn't it nice?" Isco asks, smiley and close. He hadn't seemed bitter in a long time. Isco then looks upwards, towards the sky.

Toni looks up too. The sky is darker than he'd expect for Madrid, and the boughs and branches of the trees in the park around them sway green and brown and leafy above an ocean of stars. It was like looking into a pond or a microcosm, and if he looks hard enough he can see each firefly and every star swimming in the soup of the cosmos that surrounds him.

Maybe the universe he belonged to was up there. Maybe this was the crushing moment where they'd get close enough for him hop back to where he belonged. If the proximity between worlds was, in fact, close enough, he didn't know or notice.

"Yeah, really nice," he breaths after an eternity. He kinda felt like he was drowning, but he also felt really great. "thanks for coming to the party, by the way."

Isco doesn't have to sidle up to get near him, is already very close. He chuckles. "It was nothing. I like your coworkers. Especially Luka."

"Really, Luka?" He pauses to remember how to move only one eyebrow up. "He's not the sharpest tool in the shed."

"Yeah," Isco laughs, trying to think of what words fit what he means. "He has the mental prowess of a bag of wet ferrets."

Toni laughs, loudly. "How many?"

Isco scrunches his face up like how he does when the thinks real hard. "'Bout five or six, I'd say. Definitely not more than seven."

Toni laughs again, and now he can't stop laughing. He can't think of the words that fit what he wants to say or mean, not in German and definitely not in Spanish so he settles for a "You're really funny."

Isco beams with the intensity and brightness of a four year old on their birthday, and then does quite possibly the least surprising thing. It followed the cliche of every young adult novel that Toni had ever read and then sworn not to have read. It doesn't change that it's surprising that he's kissed Isco, for real now.

It's all convoluted in his head. He'd kissed him before, in this world where they had to keep up appearances, but not like this, like an actual couple with actual feelings, not play acting. His brain is still foggy, but he can't help but wonder if this counts as cheating.

Toni mirrors what he was thinking. "Is this cheating?"

"Cheating?" Isco is thoughtful. "I'm cheating on you with... you?"

"Yeah, but I'm not me."

Isco puts his face in his hands. This was confusing enough without both of them being on the more intoxicated side of buzzed. He doesn't want to talk about any of this, so they just sit together at the slide top, Isco's head on Toni's shoulder, and enjoy the cool breeze.

Eventually they slide down and tiptoe through the park before making the last leg of the trek back home. They go past the cafe, lights out as it closed hours ago, and up the outdoor steps to the apartment, where the vines had been growing again. Toni promises that he'll take the ones off of the wall tomorrow, so he can see Isco smile.

As he scrapes the long green plants off of the side of their apartment, he wonders about this entire life. Despite the quaintness of it all, it was something he could get behind. He got to go visit places he normally wouldn't in Madrid, like the new bubble tea place, or the tiny art museum hidden in a mostly residential neighborhood. There's a new Polaroid photo they have of them together there, next to an oil painting of the sea.

It makes him a little sad when he thinks too much about it. He's stolen someone else's entire existence. If the Toni that belonged here ever came back, he would see the photo and wouldn't understand. Maybe he'd be jealous. But also, maybe he couldn't come back. It'd been weeks now, almost half a month, and there hadn't been a single sign of any return to his own world.

That is the last thought on his mind the day that his mother is supposed to visit. He goes through his closet to find the nicest clothes he has that day, and goes to work a little more dressed up than usual. He gets to leave a little early too, but that's not much of a perk when coming home is stressful.

Isco has come up with a dinner idea, and is busy in the kitchen as Toni cleans up the apartment. The radio is on, playing softly, and he can hear Isco sing along with it, all floaty "soy el"s and breathy low notes. He gets a rumbly sort of feeling in his chest when his eyes linger on Isco, so he finds another chore to do.

He ends up dusting the house, the sort of task someone only did when their mother was about to visit. Then he sets the table for three, and asks Isco if he needs any help. Of course he doesn't, so Toni goes back to the bedroom.

There's no way his mother was going into this room, but he tidies it up to relieve his nerves. There's a pair of pajama pants that look just like the pair that he has back home in his Madrid, and he chucks them onto the bed. The Polaroid photo of him and Isco at the art museum is on the bed-stand, and he ends up slipping it into the left pocket of the pants. He doesn't know why, but it feels right.

He looks at his watch. His mother should arrive soon, always perfectly on time. He takes a look at himself in the mirror, frowns at his reflection. He looks horribly preppy, tight button up shirt and khakis, and his hair is getting a little shaggy. He'll get it cut soon. That in itself is a strange thought, one that makes this world all the more real.

The doorbell jolts him from his thoughts, and he rushes out of the room, shutting the door behind him. Isco has set everything neatly on the table; salmon and garlic bread and salad and other vegetables. Toni greets his mother, who hugs him immediately, arms digging tight into his waist.

"It's lovely to see you!" she says with some genuine enthusiasm. "You too, Isco." She adds a little later. She still can't pronounce Isco's name right.

Isco forces a smile, and gently leads her to the dinner table. There's a bottle of wine on the table, and glasses. Lord knows how much they'd need it.

Toni has never been so nervous for a dinner in all his life. She asks all the trying questions, like about the magazine or if they had been planning on renewing their gym memberships (she's done her research and planet fitness seemed good-- Isco answers this question because apparently this was a reoccurring conversation they'd had) and all other sorts of mundane, trivial things. Isco holds his hand under the table for support.

Toni's mom was sweet and kind, but there was the tiniest underlying sense of homophobia in her words and subject choice. Toni nervously pours himself another glass of wine as she compliments Isco for his cooking. So far there had been no disaster, but that couldn't last.

After dinner, as they were clearing plates off in the kitchen and Isco was away in the restroom, Toni's mother confronts him. He has a feeling on what this could be about.

"Sweetheart," she starts "are you happy with him?"

"I--"

She starts again. "I mean, he's great and all, but are you going to get married? Weren't you happier with Jessica?"

How firm and commanding his voice is surprises himself. "Mom, I'm gay. I didn't love her like that. It was five years ago. I'm gay." He says it twice, to get the point across.

She frowns, opens her mouth to say something, but Isco comes in, instantly has an arm around Toni. He suggests that they play bridge and manages to immediately diffuse the situation. Isco keeps her calm and content for the rest of the night.

When she leaves a great pressure seems to go with her. Isco opens another bottle of wine. Toni turns on the radio again, and they chat over the rest of the garlic bread and wine. They'd survived, and with minimal drama. Now they couldn't stop talking, even though they knew they both had work tomorrow and it was getting very late.

A little drunk, they waltz from the dining room through the kitchen to their bedroom, radio still on. Isco is unbuttoning his shirt before they close the door. They stumble around, taking off clothes and putting on pajamas, and fall into bed.

Except now Toni can't fall asleep, and neither can Isco. They talk, moving closer and closer in bed, until Isco is on top of him and then they're kissing and any ideas of going to sleep soon have been banished. Toni's heart pounds in his chest.

They slip out of shirts again, and he knows where this was going. He hadn't done this before, but he seem to know what to do, and everything feels fucking amazing.

•

Toni wakes up without a hangover, but with tiredness in his limbs. He can't feel the pressure of a head on his chest, so sleepily he reaches out an arm to find Isco. Nothing. He opens his eyes, looks around, and nearly screams.

He's in his own house again. No Isco, no shared apartment. He rushes to his bedroom mirror. He has his tattoos, and haircut, and slim waist again. He's wearing the familiar pair of pajama pants that existed in that other timeline that he was wearing just last night.

With a degree of anguish, he walks to his kitchen and makes himself coffee. He contemplates as he brews. The more he thinks about it, the more it has to be a dream. One long, crazy dream.

He's convinced himself of it completely until he's changed out of his pajamas. A photo falls out of the left pocket. He squats down to pick it up off the floor, and stares at it in shock. It is the same Polaroid from the museum, wavy blue painting behind Isco and Toni. They don't have any tattoos on their arms, and they look like everyone else. He hides it in his sock drawer, afraid of what meaning comes with it.

He tries to get his mind off of the whole thing for all of next week, trains harder and gets more tired in an effort to forget and ignore. He avoids Isco too, now that his car is out of the shop and every interaction with the smaller man causes a wave of emotions. The spaniard tries to get his attention after practices, but Toni brushes him off. The only solace that Isco could get was that Toni was avoiding pretty much everyone, so it couldn't be personal.

Toni tries his best to be alone at trainings; runs alone, does the exercises he can alone, stretches alone. If he has to practice with someone, he chooses someone he's not close to so there's no chance of conversation. He makes sure he leaves as quickly as possible after training, or stays late doing extra, just so he can avoid people. He prays Zinedine isn't concerned.

It all starts to worry Isco, so he talks to Gareth and James and Luka, all the other people at the club who are close to the German the next week. None of them know what's up either, which is both reassuring and worrying. Gareth is the one who volunteers to ask.

It's even weirder for Toni for Gareth to sit next to him on the bus to the game a few days later. They were friends, but Gareth always sat with Luka on the bus. Gareth attempts conversation. Toni stifles it. He tries to put his earbuds in and blast his music, but the Welshman has a grip like a vice on his shoulder. He waits until the pressure starts to hurt.

"What?" He spits out.

"What?" Gareth echoes back. "You don't get to say that. You're the one acting weird."

Toni decides to play it innocent. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Gareth scoffs, and now their teammates are starting to notice them. Isco's eyes burn hot on the back of Toni's neck, and he can feel his face get red. "Don't play stupid Toni, I know something is up."

Toni won't respond. Gareth stares at him incessantly, but without avail. Eventually he snaps "Fine. Don't tell me now. I'll make you tell me later."

Toni has a horrible game that night. He can't seem to focus, mistimes all of his runs. Half of his passes are too strong or not strong enough, and his only shot at goal goes horrifically wide. He gets subbed out for Isco before the first half is even over. He looks at the clock as he walks off, sees that there are still nineteen minutes left in the first half. James stares at him on the bench along with all of the other sub players, because the marvelous and great Toni Kroos has had a failure of a game. Zidaine gives him a firm talking to.

On the field, Isco is having the game of his life. Toni has to watch from the bench, and now he can't take his eyes away. Everything that he'd got wrong Isco has gotten right, from passing to intercepting to even running. It all culminates in a last minute goal and everyone goes wild, sans Toni, who no longer knows how to feel. Maybe he feels empty at this point.

Everyone asks him what the fuck is up after the game, and he can't supply an answer. He dodges the questions to the best of his abilities, and dodges Bale after the game. He goes home and lies on his bed face down with the lights off and cries. He's not even sure what he's crying about.

The day after, Gareth asks him again, and Toni can't give him an answer. He's not going to suddenly confess to Gareth and explain about traveling dimensions for a night and now he had a crush on Isco because of it all. That's not an option. Instead, he lies, shittily, about feeling bad and not wanting to rub off on anyone.

So of course the day after that Isco knocks on his door. He has a worried expression and a tin of the type of German sugar cookies Toni likes best. "Gareth told me you were feeling bad."

"Oh." Toni says. It was only a half lie. He didn't feel good now, his heart in his throat and nerves pounding.

"I hope you feel better soon," Isco says. Toni could drown in his eyes, large and concerned. He doesn't remember letting Isco into his house, but now Isco's shitting the door for him. "Anything I can do?"

Toni wills his thoughts to the present. His mind is mostly, unfortunately blank. "Uh, I don't know."

Instead, they end up playing FIFA for about two hours longer than expected. Isco tries to help him make lasagna (he almost burns and almost drops it), and leaves far after dinner time. Toni attempts to get all the thoughts of Isco out of his mind, but he can't, not when he's alone, so he decides to just go to bed instead.

After that things go mostly back to normal. They hang out again, go to movies or get dinner or take Isco's dog to the dog park. It's normal on Isco's part, but Toni can't help but overthink every movement and interaction, worry about if he was being too weird or too obvious or too quiet.

Sometimes he forgets, and that's when things are best. It happens occasionally, like when they go back to the Vietnamese restaurant. Isco gets the new type of pho on the menu, and is soon talking about the wonders of Asia with Toni.

"We should visit Vietnam sometime!"

"Yeah," Toni agrees dumbly, and his mind finally clears. They chat, for a long time, about everything and nothing, and it's so wonderful to be without stress or worry. They plan on hanging out again, soon.

As Toni drives home that night he wishes he could be like that with Isco all the time. Then again it's hard to, because he's in way too deep. He's thought about Isco when he jerks off in the shower and it all feels wrong and horrible and he hates having a crush.

He banishes those thoughts again when they start playing NBA at Isco's house the next week. He's solidly thwomping Isco, like how the spaniard always destroys him in smash bros, and the gloating is glorious.

They stop playing eventually, at Isco's request, and end up watching Batman Returns, again. No one wanted or suggested the movie, but it ends up playing. Neither of them are paying any attention to the film either, having both seen it a million times. Toni studies Isco's face. Isco makes offhand remarks about the impossibility of super heroes.

They get quiet for a while.

It's much unlike Toni to break the silence, never has been outgoing or outspoken enough to do so. He doesn't look at Isco, now just stares ahead at the movie. "I- I think I'm gay."

"Okay." Isco says, like it's not a big deal. Toni's face is red, and he doesn't get how it isn't a big deal. "That's okay."

"You're okay with it?" Toni asks, incredulously. Isco stares straight ahead at the movie despite Toni's eyes now being focused directly on him.

Isco gulps, shifts in his seat uncomfortably. He's quiet for a while. Toni wonders why. Finally "Well yeah, I like you and all."

Toni's mouth hangs open, and he knows it. He guesses it makes sense, Isco having made more of an effort to hang out with him in the past month, but never once has he even thought of it that way. He was too caught up in his own worries to realize things were mutual.

He wants to ask if Isco is gay too, how he knew, and a million other things, but it seems like this is the time where he's supposed to kiss him, so he does. It's different, because technically he's kissed him before, but not here in his Madrid, and this is technically their first. Isco is scruffy and not extremely romantic but it's nice enough just knowing everything is reciprocated.

Things are immediately not awkward anymore. In the following months he gonna get happier, and rarely ever does he think about the time he spent outside of his own life, as he'd decided that it was good to keep that sense of deja vu far away.

He hides the Polaroid far away in the recesses of his house, and Isco will never see it.

**Author's Note:**

> cheers lads hoped you liked it


End file.
